BANANA CRAZE IN JAPAN

The Philippines should move faster and purposely to fill the shortage of bananas in the shelves of Japan, where the "Banana Morning Diet" has a big craze.
Due to the growing popularity of the Banana Morning Diet, Rep. Emmylou Talinio-Mendoza said that over the last six months, bananas have been flying off supermarket racks in Japan faster show they would be replenished.
Created by a pharmacist in Osaka, the Banana Morning Diet has become Fashionable in Japan on account of strong endorsement by celebrities there who have testimony about their sudden loss of weight.
The regimen starts with a banana with a glass of room temperature water for breakfast and anything for lunch and dinner. Desserts are not allowed after meals. A mid afternoon snack is fine. One must have a dinner at 8 p.m. and go to bed before midnight.
A market of approximately128 million people, Japan is the buyer of more than half of the annual Philippine banana exports. Japan imported 970,000 metric tons (MT) of bananas in 2007, mostly from the Philippines and partly from Taiwan.
Cotabato is one of the Philippine province that producing banana and other tropical Fruits . Cotabato has a large plantation run by tropical growers, including Standard Philippine Fruit Corp., a subsidiary of Dole Philippines Inc.
After Ecuador, Philippines is the world's biggest banana exporter, with a global market share of 16%. Last year the country shipped out around 1.905 million metric tons of $440 million worth of banana, or P18.1 billion based on $1:41.14 exchange rate at the end of 2007.
The Philippines' 2007 export banana volume was only 40 percent of the 4.65 million metric ton shipped out by Ecuador of the same year. Ecuador was 34 percent of the global banana export market in 2007.
Besides Ecuador, the Philippines' other rivals in banana export markets are India, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Costa Rica and Mexico.